Problems with SEO & SEO Organizations

Search engines are not prone to promote or suggest an SEO service because
they lose ad revenue and be held liable when the SEO firm does a bad
job. SEO organizations do not work due to the power struggles between
various marketers.

Why Search Engines do not like SEO

Search engines cannot come right out and openly agree with SEO services
since SEO service providers may directly take away revenue search engines
would gain from pay per click services. As well as taking revenue from
the search engines some SEO services may also decrease the relevancy
of search results.

There is no official guidance on how to do SEO. Search engines give
brief vague guidelines, but they will never provide precise guidance.
If they had exact rules one could find similar techniques to manipulate
their search results that were still fine in their rule book. Search
engines cannot set out a precise guideline that judges intent.
What matters in the SEO industry is results. How did the top site get
there? How can my site rank at the top?

Why You can’t Trust an SEO Based on Their Rankings

Even if an SEO did good work in the past, or owns a site that ranks
well for competitive terms, there is still no guarantee that they will
do a good job for you. Most people who buy SEO services lose money from
their purchase or end up buying again.

Some SEOs have qualities outside the SEO field that make them popular
and help them spread their message. This help does not necessarily mean
that these people are good at promoting your site, only that they are
good at promoting their site.

Quality SEO is expensive and takes much time. Shortsighted people see
doing a bad job as easy money, thus bad SEO services is sadly a common
event. Sadly the entire SEO field gets “tarred” with the
same brush for the actions of a few people.

Some firms also sell pay per click marketing as regular SEO. Organic
SEO is different than pay per click marketing. Both will be touched
upon later.

The Problem with Labeling SEOs

The job of all SEOs is to make search engines believe a site is important
(whether or not it actually is). There is more than one way to skin
a cat. No matter how you do it the job of the SEO is to improve rankings.

Anytime SEOs use the “us VS them” strategy in their marketing
they are hurting the industry as a whole.

Certain sites will require certain techniques whereas other sites
will require other techniques. Some categories are so competitive that
they may require that you operate outside the SEO guidelines set by
the major search engines. Ultimately it is up to the SEO service consumer
to decide what risks they are willing to take and what techniques should
be used to promote their sites.

Other Problems with SEO

Some SEOs do stupid stuff that will get your site banned from search
engines. These people are not the only big problem in the SEO industry.
Some SEO firms are too lazy to do a good job.

Sure a site will not likely get banned if you are not aggressive. Of
course many terms absolutely require research, a ton of effort, and
extensive link building.

Link building (or creating ideas that naturally build links over time)
is the most time-consuming and most expensive part of SEO. Often it
is also the more important parts of SEO, sadly the process is skipped
or done inadequately by many members of the SEO community.

Lazy SEO Case Study

One such example of the lazy SEO firm was told to me by a customer who
eventually hired me. That customer previously hired one of the largest
SEO firms in the world. Over the course of 6 months they built that
client 4 links for a total cost of $6,000. That is unacceptable.

No matter what anybody tells you there is no silver bullet to SEO.
Quality SEO requires time, effort, and monetary investment.

Why Personal Education is the Only Way You can Guarantee You will find
a Quality SEO

Any SEO organization will be biased toward promoting its creators.
An example of this would be the recently organized SEMPO
which arbitrarily gave its founders “SEMPO Circle” status
for free. If you or I wanted that status it would cost us $5,000 a year.
That is an uneven playing field, which may
hinder the SEO community more than it helps it.

Bruce Clay offers the Bruce Clay code of ethics, but it has his name
on it. Marketers will not get behind an arbitrary standard which promotes
one person or a select few people.

There are a bunch of SEO directories on the web. Many of the best SEOs
are not listed in some of them. Some SEO directories are willing to
list anyone who submits their SEO site (which does nothing to guarantee
quality). Other SEO directories pride themselves on rejecting people
who do not meet their random opinion based personal standards.

You should do your own research and ask your own questions when looking
for an SEO. No directory listing can guarantee quality services.

The Difference Between this Site and SEO Directories / Guides

On this site you will notice there is no “hosting provided by”
or other promotional links. This site is a free and honest SEO resource
which was created to educate people about the SEO without offering any
sales pitch or preferred sellers list.

My name is not on the site and I registered the domain by proxy so
this domain is not connected to me any way.